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ZEN Energy says it hopes to meet “strong demand” for home battery storage with two new smaller, cheaper systems.

Corporations are entering the renewables market in force, and they will find much to like in the community-scale solar market.

Energy market rule maker agrees to new rule that may allow for more battery storage to keep the system steady as wind and solar replace coal and gas. But another crucial request, from the COAG energy ministers, is rejected, reinforcing the market dominance of the existing big players.

QUT vice-chancellor says university’s $300m endowment fund will divest its shares in coal, oil and gas companies

One of Australia’s largest universities, the Queensland University of Technology, has committed to dumping fossil fuel investments after a two-year campaign by students and staff.

In a move that surprised and delighted campaigners, the university’s vice-chancellor, Peter Coaldrake, revealed on Friday the university’s $300m endowment fund would divest its shares in coal, oil and gas companies.

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Simon Hackett named CEO of Redflow, adding to roles as chairman and biggest shareholder – ahead of first delivery of ZCell residential batteries.

Traders are playing a short game on the futures market, which seems high risk given Victoria's renewable energy ambitions and questions over future of major smelter. And a question over Redflow battery storage maker.

Protected areas, like national parks and wildlife refuges, are the cornerstones of global conservation efforts. So making sure they achieve their mission is fundamental to our goal of halting biodiversity declines.

Unfortunately, how well protected areas maintain their biodiversity remains poorly understood. While there is clear evidence that protected areas, such as Egmont National Park in New Zealand, can prevent deforestation, there is much less evidence of how well they protect our wildlife.

Our work, published in the journal Nature Communications, examined trends for more than 500 species of birds and mammals in protected areas in 72 countries. The good news is that most animals are doing well, more so for birds than mammals. But that’s no reason to become complacent.

Land surrounding Egmont National Park has been cleared to its edges. NASA/USGS Winners and losers

On the whole, birds are doing better than mammals, and species in Europe better than those in Africa. Species doing well include hippopotamus, northern hairy-nose wombats and waterfowl across Europe such as flamingoes in the Camargue region of France.

Those declining in protected areas include bushbuck in Selous National Park and other antelope like kob. Common birds such as common teal and European skylark are not immune, nor are a number of shorebirds globally. Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys are declining in Na Hang National Park in Vietnam, Tucuman parrots in Argentina, and the delightful mallee emu-wren declined to precipitously low levels in Ngarkat National Park, before being wiped out in South Australia in a single fire.

As a result of this monitoring data, many of the declining populations we studied have now been targeted for management – for instance, wetland birds across Europe. Others, like shorebirds, are faced with an intimidating cocktail of hard-to-manage international threats.

A few surprises

Unexpectedly, we also found the biggest animals were doing the best. Species like giraffes and zebras have more positive populations than smaller species like jackals.

This is surprising since larger animals tend to be slow to grow, mature and reproduce. As a result they are often slow to recover from population suppression.

Large animals often act as flagships for particular ecosystems. For instance, orang-utans are a flagship for Indonesia’s rainforests. The implication of our research is that focusing on these species is not enough to make sure all species will survive.

While more than half of protected areas we studied are getting better, there remain many protected areas where declines are still occurring worldwide. Despite this, conditions that deliver success for wildlife in protected areas are poorly understood. So, we investigated which parks were doing best and why.

The Camargue’s greater flamingos are doing well. Megan Barnes Making better reserves

Wildlife in protected areas is going better in wealthier, more developed countries (Europe) compared to developing countries (like in West Africa). It is hard to tell, though, if the difference is due to more resources available in developed countries, or increasing threats in developing nations.

National-scale socioeconomic conditions were also far more important in influencing how well parks protect wildlife than factors such as size, design or type. This shows it’s important to tailor management to social and political conditions. Over long timescales, the design of protected areas is likely to remain important, but our results show the importance of managing parks for more immediate threats.

A pygmy hippo. Ben Collen

Our results suggest that active management – like managing invasive predators, preventing poaching and reducing conflict between people and wildlife – helps animals with low reproductive rates and mitigates the greater threat faced by larger species of birds and mammals due to their slow reproductive rates. Parks still need to be well-managed, though, and threats can’t become too severe – as in the recent poaching crisis.

The tools to ensure good outcomes from protected areas exist — but the will and capacity to implement them must be strengthened if we expect them to act as refuges for all species forever.

This week at the World Conservation Congress, members of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and NGOs will vote on policies to halt biodiversity declines by 2020. To date, conservationists have focused on increasing the size of the global protected area estate, but simply establishing more protected areas is not enough.

Instead, we need a radical change in commitment. To do this we need to address shortfalls in management. Ensuring both sufficient and secure finances for management and appropriate and equitable governance is just the beginning. Otherwise we’ll keep creating more parks, but wildlife will keep declining.

Megan Barnes has received funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmrntal Decisions

Pressure is growing on the UK government to ratify the Paris climate change deal immediately.

GCL-SIhas been named in the Tier 1 list of BNEF, ranking of PV module manufacturers. On the list, GCL-SI is ranked No. 2 based on its annual solar module capacity.

Renewable energy certificates edge closer to penalty price and the point of no new generation.

An updated Cost Recovery Implementation Statement has been released to reflect proposed changes to cost recovery arrangements for environmental assessments under the EPBC Act.

A poor wet season sees a drop in northern quoll numbers in the Pilbara; the scallop season begins in Tasmania; a home delivery scheme works for farmers and consumers; and the Brook Hunt Club chases an elusive fox.

For the first time, skulls and other artefacts from the 1545 wreck of the Mary Rose warship are being exhibited online, as part of a project testing the limits of digital archaeology.

At sea the world dissolves and you're left with the sound of your own thoughts.

The great global race against time has very much begun now. The US and China ratify Paris deal, capital flow shift, China cancels nuclear plant and even conservative press hails transition to sun, wind and water within a generation.

CCA report on government's emissions targets ignores the carbon budget, is politically expedient, and brushes aside concern about current measures. Worst, it ignores the science.

Cutting funding from ARENA will kill renewable energy research, innovation and education in Australia. It's time to make a submission, it will only take 10 minutes.

With its robust rooftop market, a diverse offgrid sector and a utility scale segment heading towards major expansion, the Australian solar PV landscape is attracting new players.

Grace Livingstone talks to members of Mapuche indigenous communities living near a fracking site in Argentina about their concerns for their health and their environment.

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 8 September 1916

The autumnal touch of morning mist reveals the fact that spiders are more numerous than we imagine. Over the hedge-top, slung between the garden plants stretched across the road and pathway, and suspended beneath the bushes are innumerable lines, nets, and traps, all carefully prepared to ensnare the heedless fly or other insect. They are there, these nets, on every summer day, but it is only when the moisture ropes them with scintillating minute drops –

“every fairy wheel and thread
Of cobweb dew-bediamonded” –*

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